Ortega talks ALBA at CELAC summit

President Daniel Ortega was accompanied by his wife and daughter at the regional summit

By:Tim Rogers / Nicaragua Dispatch | January 28, 2013

First Lady Rosario Murillo kept President Daniel Ortega in her sights during the summit in Chile

(posted Jan. 28, 2:00 p.m.)- Nicaragua was well represented by three members of the first family during last weekend’s first bi-regional summit between the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the EU.

Accompanying President Daniel Ortega to the summit in Chile were first lady Rosario Murillo and their daughter, Camila Ortega Murillo, whose role in the government is unclear despite her increasingly frequent appearances at official events.

Nicaragua’s spot at table was marked by two name plaques for the presidential couple, while the first daughter sat in the second row next to the other Nicaraguan delegates, Trade Minister Orlando Solorzano and OAS Ambassador Denis Moncada.

During his 20-minute address to the assembly, Ortega talked about a wide variety of loosely related topics, from nuclear arms, drug trafficking and peace talks in Colombia, to Mexico’s historic support for revolutionary processes, the 20th century wars in Central America, and Puerto Rico’s “fight for liberation and independence.”

Ortega expressed his solidarity with Venezuela’s convalescing President Hugo Chávez, called for an end to the U.S. embargo against Cuba, and expressed his support for Argentina’s claim to the Falkland Islands.

Ortega: CELAC can learn from ALBA

Camila Ortega Murillo (on cellphone) also participated in the Nicaragua delegation to the CELAC-EU summit

Ortega called CELAC a “victory for the people” and said the regional body can learn from other integration initiatives, such as the Venezuelan-led Bolivarian Alliance for Our Americas (ALBA).

ALBA, Ortega said, is not about handouts or gifts, but about “energizing” smaller economies “so they can get out of poverty.”

“Venezuela is not giving away petroleum. We pay for 100%,” Ortega said.

The benefit of the arrangement, he explained, is in the terms of payment, which requires Nicaragua to pay only 50% up front and allows the country to invest 25% of their oil bill in social programs and infrastructure projects. The preferential terms of repayment have allowed Nicaragua to maintain macroeconomic stability, Ortega told the crowd.

But ALBA is not just an oil business, Ortega said. “This is a complementary project to strengthen our economy,” he said.

The president noted that ALBA is also allowing Nicaragua to invest in renewable energy technology and export agricultural products to Venezuela, which is having a hard time feeding itself.

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The U.S. embassy in Nicaragua is downplaying concerns raised by Sandinista health officials in Managua that one of its embassy staff workers was infected with Ebola during a recent mission to Liberia, West Africa. “In no moment was he in contact with Ebola patients,” the U.S. embassy said in statement, following a live broadcast by government health workers claiming the exact opposite.

The first bi-regional summit between the European Union and the 33 countries of the recently formed Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) ended Sunday afternoon in Santiago, Chile with optimistic calls for a new “strategic alliance for sustainable development” between the new and old worlds. “When it comes to shared values, there is no continent that is closer to Europe than Latin America,” said Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council, at the conclusion of this weekend’s summit.

Nicaraguas “first family”(ladrones numero uno),has become the richest crooks in Nica-land,together with the inner circle of the communistas.Chavez thinks Venezuelas oil is his.It does not strike his mind that this is not the case..While the populations in Venezuela and Nicaragua get poorer and poorer,the shameless “elite” doesn’t seem to care.
I have spent four and a half years in Nicaragua,and have seen first hand what goes on there.Nicaragua is full of decent poor people.The rich ones are garbage.Unfortunately this will not change in the foreseeable future.

Central American authorities are spending more time than usual eyeballing the backsides of bovine this week, following a Honduran media report that claims drug cartels are using cattle to hoof drugs north to Mexico.

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Editorial
With an obsequious bow to Russian expansionism, Nicaragua this week joined North Korea, Syria, Sudan, Venezuela, Zimbabwe and five other model democracies in rejecting a UN resolution that reaffirms the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Ukraine. The UN resolution, which calls the Crimea referendum invalid and urges a “peaceful resolution” to the crisis following Russia’s annexation of the peninsula, was supported by 100 nations and rejected by 11.

As Sandinista faithful mobilize in the streets of Managua to pay homage to former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez on the one-year anniversary of his death, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan analysts predict the international project he started won’t outlive its founder for much longer. President Daniel Ortega, who is traveling to Venezuela to pay official tribute to his former benefactor, honored Chávez as a revolutionary who “fought for the people, fought for America, fought for humanity, fought for peace and fought for justice.”
Prior to leaving for the airport today, Ortega said that now, “more than ever,” the countries belonging to the alliance created by Chávez will “continue to fight for peace, for justice, for liberty and for the sovereignty of our people.”
But just a year after the loss of Chávez’s charismatic leadership, and amid the ruin of Venezuela’s economy, the Bolivarian Alliance for Our Americas (ALBA) —Chávez’s brainchild for regional integration — appears to be collapsing under the weight of its own ambition.